by Emma Quinn
The crossing light turned red as I stopped. The cab idled past me, the driver looking at me to see if perhaps I would summon him. I smiled and looked back to the crossing light. Checking both ways, there was no traffic. I was tempted to cross the street quickly but thought better of it when I heard what sounded like a street bike whining through the gears in the distance. I couldn’t tell how far away it was, or really even which direction it was coming from because of the echo effect of the empty streets and the tall buildings.
After the crossing light turned, I could still hear the motorcycle’s whine, it was just louder. Glancing at the light again, I ventured onto the street, looking to my left where I thought the sound was coming from.
I made it a few steps out when I realized the sound was coming from my right. My attention snapped toward the speeding red and black motorcycle as he came around the turn leaned close to the pavement. He was in the wrong lane and his head was turned in the opposite direction as he half-assed checked for traffic he could have been speeding in front of. Scrambling backward to avoid being hit, my foot caught on the curb and sprawled backward onto the sidewalk, landing on my backpack.
The rider stopped the motorcycle just on the other side of the intersection, looking over his shoulder. I had felt the damage to my laptop and was nearly in a panic as I got to my knees and unshouldered my backpack. The motorcycle swung back around and headed toward me slowly. I pulled the laptop from my bag, and my heart dropped sickeningly into my gut. I gently opened it as the guy flipped up the helmet’s visor and then pulled the whole thing off, dangling it in one hand.
“Hey, are you okay, lady?” His ride idled just loud enough to be annoying.
I looked sadly at the ruined, shattered screen, and then turned to him. Standing, brandishing my broken computer at arm’s length, I advanced so he could see what he had caused. “What the hell is wrong with you? You nearly killed me, and you broke my laptop!” I stepped closer so he could get a good look.
Snorting laughter, he eyed me as if I were a little inconsequential insect. “Nearly killed you? I wasn’t even close to you. You’re the one who ran out in front of me and then panicked. I just stopped to be sure you hadn’t hurt yourself.” His condescending tone infuriated me.
“You were even in the wrong lane! And look!” I shook the computer at him again. “You need to pay for this, mister. This is your fault. My crossing light was green, and your light was red. Don’t you know that means stop?” I was screaming still. Without my computer, there was no way I’d make it through my classes.
He scoffed. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that asshat scoffed. I wanted to hurt him.
“Like I said, you ran out in front of me. You’re just lucky I’m such a damn good driver. Anyone else might have hit your stupid ass. Next time, look before you cross the damn road.” He revved up the bike, put it into gear, and turned it around, speeding off into the shadowed street ahead.
As he turned, I got his license plate number and hastily scribbled it onto my hand. Grumbling, still raging inside, I stuffed my broken laptop back into the pack, and adjusted my course. I headed to the police station. The library wasn’t happening without a computer anyway.
The policewoman who helped me was nice, which was an exception instead of a rule at the local PD. I was thankful for her understanding and willingness to give me the time I needed to get through the whole story. Most would have rushed me, rolled their eyes, and only taken part of the story into consideration before finalizing the complaint and pushing me out the door.
“We can pull the footage from the traffic cams in the area and see exactly what happened, Miss Shandon.” She led me to the door. “We’ll do everything we can.” There was a gleam in her eye as she flipped the papers against her hand, and her smile said she knew something that maybe I didn’t about the situation.
Hoping for the best but truly expecting nothing to come of it, I thanked her and trudged out the door thinking how many extra shifts I would need to work to be able to afford another laptop. I hated the thought that I might have to ask my father to front the expense, but I desperately needed my laptop to get through my classes.
What had started out as a normal, hopeful day for me, had ended up turning into a steaming pile of uncertainty, anger, and sore muscles. By the time I made it to my first class of the day, my head pounded as if there were a jackhammer on the loose inside it.
It was going to be a very long day, indeed.
3
Dylan
N
early a week passed after the stupid girl stepped out in front of me that morning. I was genuinely concerned when I swerved to miss her; that’s why I turned back to check on her. And, if I’m being perfectly honest here, she didn’t do anything wrong. My light was red, and I was supposed to stop. I was just feeling so good, letting all the tension and aftermath of my confrontation with Mishauna blow away with the cycle exhaust that I wasn’t paying attention.
Truthfully, though, I wasn’t expecting anyone to be on the deserted street before five in the morning. I know, I know. You’re thinking what an ass I am for not paying closer attention and only thinking of myself. Well, what can I say? We all do stupid shit sometimes. Thankfully, though, no one was hurt. She ranted like a crazy person about her broken laptop, but she was unharmed; only her pride got hurt, I thought.
In my opinion, she was rude and ungrateful. I could have continued on and not stopped to even check on her, but I didn’t. Then she started flinging accusations and brandishing that damn computer at me, so I left her there.
Several days later, I was awakened at the ungodly hour of nine in the morning by my phone. Without even looking at the screen, I rejected the call and rolled back over to go back to sleep. My phone immediately started ringing again. Once more, I rejected the call and then powered it off, tossing it to the nightstand and falling back asleep almost instantly.
Less than an hour passed, and I was awakened by, of all people, my father standing by my bed clearing his throat.
Home alone, I nearly jumped out of bed when he cleared his throat. Flinging the covers back and bouncing to the edge of the bed, I stared up in confusion at my father’s stormy expression. My sleep-fuddled brain would not come up with any suitable reason that he should be there.
“Well, it’s good to see you’re well-rested and alert, Dylan.” His clipped, sarcastic tone implied there was some sort of trouble and it was my fault.
“Huh?” Still confused, I rubbed my face vigorously trying to force the last remnants of the previous night’s alcohol out of my system and wake up.
He made his hand into a kid’s gun, pointed it at me, and clicked his tongue to imitate a bang. “Exactly!” He walked to the windows and grabbed the blackout curtains.
“Dad! Don’t do—”
Too late. The bright morning sun blasted into my nice, comfy, cave-like room and shot rods of pain through both my eyes and into my brain. I groaned loudly and squeezed my eyes shut, turning away from the windows. My stomach revolted by crawling up to sit just under my chin, threatening to spill what little bit of food I had eaten before crashing.
Dad moved to the next set of curtains and yanked them mercilessly open, too. He repeated the process all the way to the end of the room. The effect was blinding and painful. I groaned and then dry heaved several times. My father’s response to this was to use his foot to shove a trashcan close to me before he grabbed a chair and dragged it over the floor noisily to sit near the foot of my bed, his back to the windows.
He waited until I had my stomach under control before speaking. “I’ve decided that the first day of the rest of your life is today, Dylan. As of,” he looked at his watch, “three minutes after ten, your adolescent lifestyle has abruptly ended.” He waited for my response.
I couldn’t look directly at him because of the sun at his back. Opening my eyes to slits, I shaded them with my hand as I eyed him. The white-gold corona that surrounded him left him as only a black figure sitting there
facing me. I was definitely not equipped to handle a confrontation with him that morning.
“Dad, what the hell? I’m sick, can we just close the curtains?” I hated how whiney my voice sounded.
He laughed derisively. “Oh, no. I don’t think so, son. See, we have a problem that needs your immediate and undivided attention. I need you to get over your juvenile hangover and clean yourself up.” He stood and dragged the chair purposefully slowly back to its original place, and then turned to me. “Now.” He looked at his watch again. “I’ll give you ten minutes. If you’re not in the kitchen in ten minutes, I’m coming back, and it won’t be good.”
It was easier to see his stern and disgusted expression as he stood away from the bank of floor-to-ceiling windows, but not much. I didn’t say anything as I was still trying to keep my stomach where it should be and force my eyes to focus a bit better.
He leaned forward, glaring at me. “Do you understand, Dylan? Ten minutes.” He held out his arm and tapped his watch.
“Okay!” I nodded as my response had come out breathy and weaker than I had intended.
As I dragged into the bathroom, I could count my heartbeats in my skull. My head felt as if it would explode, and I saw little reddish-black streaks in my vision radiating from the center outward.
Flipping on the overheads was the last straw. I ended up on my knees in front of the porcelain god of drunks. I worshipped there for a few moments, feeling drained and shrunken a bit worse by each traitorous upheaval of my stomach. Afterward, I plodded to the sink and brushed my teeth with my eyes closed against the light. The pounding in my head eased a bit but I still poured four aspirin into my mouth and chewed them up, swallowing the chalky, bitter sludge with water from the tap.
I had no way of knowing if I had taken the full ten minutes or not, but it felt more like half an hour had passed when I finally walked out of my room, mostly clean and groomed, and dressed in fresh clothes. Under other circumstances, I would have been extremely angry and confrontational, but not that morning, I was far too hungover to be mad.
Dad’s whistling grew louder as I neared the kitchen and smelled the strong coffee brewing.
So, he’s not a monster set on completely destroying me this morning, I thought. At least, he’s brewing me coffee before slamming me with whatever bad news he’s bearing.
As soon as he saw me, he stopped whistling and his expression became severe again. He pointed to the table where a large cup of coffee sat steaming. I nodded my thanks and hurried to it without a word. After pouring himself a cup, he sat across the table from me. It was not lost on me that he had not set my cup at the head of the table, where I felt I should have been, seeing that I was in my own house. But I didn’t argue, and I didn’t move to the head.
My father was normally easygoing. Since my mother had left us, though, he had a tendency to lower the boom on me about the way I lived more often. The rants and tirades were short-lived, but sometimes very upsetting for us both. I was a grown man, though, and he needed to understand that. Moreover, I thought, he needed to respect it.
“So, what’s up, Dad? What’s this urgent business that couldn’t wait until I was better?” My impertinent tone was back, which suited me fine. It beat sounding like a cowering shit any day of the week. The coffee sped the effects of the aspirin, too, and I was feeling a little better with each sip. That meant my anger at the whole rude situation was ramping up.
He sat back and pulled folded papers from his inside jacket pocket. How the man could stand wearing a dress suit in the California heat was beyond me, but he did it with flair, never breaking a sweat. He placed the papers, still folded on the table between us and tapped them with the tip of his finger for a few ticks of the clock, eyeing me with an unreadable expression. Finally, he nodded once and pushed them toward me.
“Look at those before you get any higher or mightier with me, son. It would serve you well to remember your place and act accordingly right now. I’m in no mood for an argument that I will most assuredly win right now.” He arched an eyebrow at me in warning as he had done my whole life.
Scoffing, I held my tongue, knowing better than to start before I even knew what was going on. I snatched the papers and flipped them open. My heart dropped as I realized what he was showing me. It was that stupid girl. She had turned me in at the PD. How dare that brat? I thought but didn’t speak it. I looked over all the papers, my rage shooting my blood pressure through the roof and causing my headache to come back with a vengeance.
Folding the papers, I laid them on the table and looked at my father. “Okay, so I messed up. I stopped to check that she was all right, though. I apologized to her and everything. She was the one who was rude and inconsiderate, ranting and raving like a lunatic.”
He held up his hand and shook his head. My defense had fallen on deaf ears. He was having none of it. “You are damn lucky that Susan called me as soon as she figured out who you were. Let me enlighten you, son. I left a check for that girl’s computer, with a little extra tacked on just for her troubles. I also paid your speeding tickets. Do you have any idea how many traffic cameras and radars recorded you as you rode through the city acting like a maniac on that thing? Do you?” When I didn’t respond, he slammed his hand on the table. “I just saved you some jail time, son, the least you could do is look at me when I speak to you.” He visibly restrained himself and regained his composure.
I hadn’t even thought of the traffic cams and radars as I had sped through the empty streets. A cold chill traced my spine. The thought of going to jail was incomprehensible to me. My father was one of the richest men in the United States, for me to actually be arrested was something I had never considered.
Still angry and hurting worse than before, I retorted, “Okay, so I’ll pay you back. What’s the big damn deal, anyway?”
He laughed. “That’s just grand. What money will you pay me back with, Dylan? My money? The money from one of your cards, which, by the way, are all financed by yours truly.” He pointed to himself. “No, I think not. As I said earlier, your juvenile, reckless lifestyle is over. You, my son, are going to grow up, start working at the company, or I will cancel every single one of those precious cards and lock all your cash accounts.” The small, tight smile on his face said it all.
He was serious. He would cut me off completely. My stomach crawled back up my throat and the only thing keeping it down was the extra hard thumping of my heart, I think. As much as I loathed the idea of working in the company, I knew I would have to do as he said or risk being penniless.
Glaring openly, I nodded.
“See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” He put the papers in a neat little stack at the head of the table. “Now, I’m leaving. I have work to attend to. You will be in my office first thing in the morning.” He stood to leave.
“What time is ‘first thing in the morning’?” I asked glumly, taking a long gulp of my cooling coffee.
“I’m in my office every morning at seven. I expect you to be there when I get there.” He walked to the door and then turned. “Do not test me on this, Dylan. I love you, but I will cut out all your funding.” He motioned in a circle over his head. “All this? It’ll go away. All your childish ‘party pads’ will go away along with all your toys.” He stepped out and closed the door.
By toys, he meant all my cars and motorcycles, yachts, and other recreational vehicles I had amassed over the last ten years. I finished off the coffee and stood to pour another cup, giving the police department papers a sidelong glance as I passed them.
She had actually turned me in to the police. It was a foreign concept, but one I was beginning to come to terms with. That stupid girl had, with one flipping action, turned my life completely upside down.
Now I had to figure out how to get it right side up again.
4
Dylan
M
y dad was always pretty hard on me; even before my mother left us when I was fifteen. After that, though, he was ev
en harder on me; constantly bitching and griping about how lazy I was and how I needed to grow up and take my place at the family business. I never really wanted any part of the family business, though. Seriously, who the hell wants to work for their dad when he’s always downing them? I didn’t. I still don’t.
Although I had grown into an adult with an adult’s needs and desires, I was going to have to bite the bullet and go to work at Rochester Industries. I mean, I couldn’t just rebel and have all my funds cut out. There was no way I could get a job anywhere else to finance my posh lifestyle, and I wasn’t about to give up all of it.
I had been rebelling since the age of sixteen and hardly knew how to do otherwise up until Dad walked in and lowered the boom on me that morning.
Still feeling sick, probably more due to the constraints he had put on my life than from any lingering hangover, I did as he had demanded of me and went to his office the next morning. I stood in his office looking out the window at the impressive view of the city below, drinking my third large cup of coffee for the day. Seven in the morning was not a good time for me, and even after the copious amount of caffeine, I was still tired and had an overall sense of depression.
He came through the door at exactly seven, two men followed him closely, taking notes on legal pads as he talked. Poor saps, I thought, following him around hoping for a scrap from the king, groveling around him like scolded pups desperate for attention.
I turned back to the view, scoffing disgustedly. It was pathetic the way everybody pandered to the old man, in my opinion, and it was far too early to even try to be civil to anyone. Maybe after lunch I would be more tolerant to the bullshit.